I'm just floored! - Page 2

[serenbat]

Quote:

 Afterwards, a few people came up to me and talked to me about my son and wondered out loud if he would have been tougher if he had been attending school.  Ugh! I never know what to say.

how about- "I love him for who he is........and I could careless about your opinion(s)"----------how rude to speak to you............and IF he was in school and being bullied or intimiated would that your fault to those well-meaning one???

Quote:

You're certainly entitled to your perspective.

and I stand by it!

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by serenbat 

and I stand by it!

I guess as a parent of older kids who has watched a lot of unschoolers grow up and find their own paths, many of which involved school, I'd just be a little careful about expressing your homeschooling choice in such anti-school terms. I think it can also complicate the relationship of young children with adults whom they know have chosen school on their own kids' behalf. 

Miranda

[serenbat]

Quote:

I guess as a parent of older kids who has watched a lot of unschoolers grow up and find their own paths, many of which involved school, I'd just be a little careful about expressing your homeschooling choice in such anti-school terms. I think it can also complicate the relationship of young children with adults whom they know have chosen school on their own kids' behalf. 

sounds a lot like you are in favor of the OP's friend's remarks

you seem to see things only in select terms, please don't but unfounded words in my mouth, you may feel I am anti-school all you want, - your choice is yours and mine is mine and I don't see attacking me is just for this thread........ the OP is receiving the same from her so-called friend too!

there need not be complication, there needs to be support, those who HS their children need know those children can be just fine and remarks can be hurtful and untrue-as the OP is being remarked by her so-called friend,  it's sad others only see their way as correct and yours as harming your child, just so wrong-IMO

[Silverring]

I wasn't afraid to 'let go' when I sent my children to school.  I was afraid of home schooling, though my son asked for it within days of starting school.  Yet I kept plugging away at it, encouraging him, advocating for him and hoping it would get better.  When he was attacked while left unsupervised with a boy the teachers knew was bullying him (and hadn't told me) I thought I could find a way to help him back to school, though he was begging me to teach him at home.  Only when I went to the playground to pick up my youngest son, and I had mothers tell me their children had thought this boy had put him in hospital AND NO-ONE WAS SURPRISED I realised I had to pull him out.

This poor, lost boy who attacked him needs support that he isn't getting in school.  He held another child's head underwater during a swimming lesson and still he isn't adequately supervised.  What will it take?

So there is some anti-school sentiment I suppose in our choices as a family, but that was never what I wanted.  I wanted the kids in school for their own development and so I could help support the family financially.  I am highly educated though left school with nothing to show for my time there.  Night school was my way forward and I wanted to put it to financial use.  As it turns out, I'm using it to teach my own children and that is enough.  I feel very lucky to have that opportunity to do this for them.

And hopefully we'll find a school together in the future where the children can thrive.  If that's what they want.  

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by serenbat 

sounds a lot like you are in favor of the OP's friend's remarks

Are you kidding me??? I have accumulated over 30 kid-years of unschooling. I am the organizer of a support group of 200 homeschool families in our area. I continue to be a passionate unschooling parent, I have been involved in the organization of every homeschooling program, activity or support in the last 15 years in my community.

I'm simply in favour of whatever is the best choice for any particular child in any particular family at any particular time. I don't see why the choice to unschool needs to negate the choices other parents make for their children. Or the choices my older kids make for themselves to attend high school or college or whatever. If they find value in it for themselves, I don't think I need to run around denying that in order to validate my own choices.

Miranda 

[elizawill]

 the logic behind such an ignorant opinion posted on FB would be difficult not to reply too. how many people in this world are completely dysfunctional that went to public school? more than two i'm certain. i'm confident that the adult "examples" she references have deeper issues at bay than solely how they were home educated. my advice is put that person on ignore, or better yet, tell her she's a jacka$$.

[elizawill]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

I guess as a parent of older kids who has watched a lot of unschoolers grow up and find their own paths, many of which involved school, I'd just be a little careful about expressing your homeschooling choice in such anti-school terms. I think it can also complicate the relationship of young children with adults whom they know have chosen school on their own kids' behalf. 

Miranda

i very much agree with you. it doesn't have to be "and/or". public school, private school, charter school, virtual school, homeschooling...they are all viable options and what works for one family may not work for another. i don't think it's ever a good idea to teach our kids that one option is superior over another. what works now may change later.  for example, my daughter has always homeschooled but next year she will take choir at a public school. when she's 15, she will attend a community college. things change.

[mommy68]

:(  ugh ugh ugh

I know plenty of people who have "adult children" who were home schooled and most were H/S the entire time and never attended school outside the home. Most of my friends are in their late 40's and 50's so their kids are all in their 20's now, some nearing 30. They started H/S'ing back in the early days of H/S'ing. They all turned out pretty darn good. My oldest is 17 and was homeschooled, then did early college and now in 11th grade is H/S'ing again. He is awesome. He was always a shy kid and I mean the kind of shy where he hid behind me and was afraid to talk for years. People worried me constantly about H/S'ing and how it was messing him up socially. Now he works with his dad in his business and actually deals with customers all day by himself. He loves it! My 17 and 10 yr olds both get along better with people older than them.

[mommy68]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

Lol, I personally know a couple of dozen public-schooled adults who are scarred and barely functional in society.

#flawedlogic

Miranda

LOL

[lanamommyphd07]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

I guess as a parent of older kids who has watched a lot of unschoolers grow up and find their own paths, many of which involved school, I'd just be a little careful about expressing your homeschooling choice in such anti-school terms. I think it can also complicate the relationship of young children with adults whom they know have chosen school on their own kids' behalf. 

Miranda

I hang on to some of this as we meander through learning here, too. Once in a while there might be a great chance for an experience, and it might involve a school of some type. I hate to present it to dd as "better" or "worse" but more in terms of "how cool it is that you can learn this thing this way right now". 

[Silverring]

I agree.  I don't want to present school or no school as better or worse - just different choices and WE are very happy with our choice.  That doesn't reflect on anyone else's choice.  Partly, I don't want them to present an 'anti-school' attitude to others because so many other parents seem to think that our, different, choices must mean that we think other parents are getting it wrong. 

I've always struggled with this one - when I stayed at home, other women felt the need to explain to me how important it was that they go back to work.  When I went to work after 8 years at home, other mums needed to tell me that they needed to be at home.  I think there is an awful lot of pressure on mothers and this is what causes this - any difference can be seen as a rejection of the other person's choice and therefore somehow seen as a negative judgement on them.  The same thing happened with breastfeeding and co-sleeping and cloth nappies and so on and so on.  I can count on one hand the number of friendships I have that have been free of that sort of insecurity.

One friendship is really fragile at the moment because of my discipline choices that she told me 'make her look bad'.

So, although my kids have every right to feel angry and hostile about THEIR experiences of school, I want to make sure they understand that it's not 'school' that's the problem - nor is it their fault -but their experiences don't make all schools for all children a bad place to be and lots of children love going to school.

[terriebittner]

When people tell me about weird, unsocialized homeschooled adults, I tell them I am an example of what is wrong with that stereotype. I started kindergarten with Nancy Drew in my backpack and when the other kids started Nancy, I was on Shakespeare. I found kids boring and spent as much time as possible with adults, just getting through my boring school day so I could go home to a place where normal conversation, even with children, was causes of the Viet Nam War, life in the Middle Ages, or what we could do about poverty. I tolerated other kids only because teachers pushed me to socialize more. Today, I'm a writer--married with kids, but something of a loner. I love family time, but I don't need many friends.

My kids, on the other hand, are all very social. "Despite" being homeschooled, our phone rang all the time and they were always off to this activity or not. They have far better social skills than I do and know how to fit into ordinary society. Even the super-intellectual one knows how to fit in and how to tell who will like a philosophical discussion and who would rather talk about the latest hit movie--and he can discuss both.

It isn't really schooling that decides who we are. I turned out just like my parents. My kids turned out just like my social husband. We are socialized at home, no matter where we get our educations.

[SweetSilver]

I have plenty of beefs about schooling, but most if not all of them center around education for younger children.  I believe it can set the tone for the rest of their life, which might not be bad and sometimes it's great, but for many of us it is simply "meh".  I think I can do far better for my children, without focusing negatively on school, but then my value judgments of "better" naturally imply that school is worse.  Oh well.  Everything in the end is defined by what it is not.

I wonder if homeschooling/unschooling teens that set out to find school suits their purposes would have been so satisfied with that path had they began school from the beginning.  Somehow I think not, but it's just a guess.  They have learned to make their education their own, whether it comes from a school or not.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by SweetSilver 

I wonder if homeschooling/unschooling teens that set out to find school suits their purposes would have been so satisfied with that path had they began school from the beginning.  Somehow I think not, but it's just a guess.  

My three older kids have all eventually chosen to attend high school for at least a couple of years. All three have commented to me -- independently, at different points in time and without each others' knowledge -- how weird it is that they, the homeschooled kids, feel like they are the only students in their school classes who actually want to be there learning. And their teachers have told me that they are exceptional in that they really seem to enjoy learning for the sake of learning -- not simply as a means to earn good grades.

I agree with your guess. 

Miranda

[pek64]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

My three older kids have all eventually chosen to attend high school for at least a couple of years. All three have commented to me -- independently, at different points in time and without each others' knowledge -- how weird it is that they, the homeschooled kids, feel like they are the only students in their school classes who actually want to be there learning. And their teachers have told me that they are exceptional in that they really seem to enjoy learning for the sake of learning -- not simply as a means to earn good grades.

I agree with your guess. 

Miranda

It's not really all that weird, since homeschoolers, and especially unschoolers, focus on learning what the child wants to know, so that curiosity and the love of learning that all are born with is not doused by endles emphasis on what is *supposed* to be the focus of education at whatever grade.

[Savoir Faire]

I know some adults who went through the public school system that are compeltely and totally antisocial and barely able to function in social situations.

[Pepper44]

Thanks to Facebook I know plenty of people from my public school days that have been in jail, are drunks, don't have successful family lives or careers, and so on.  I would say the number of people I graduated with who are actually fully functioning happy adults or outstanding members of society is very low compared to the ones who just seem like they are unhappily floating along in life. I knew PLENTY of kids from public school who were anti social and awkward, or who couldn't read...

That's not to say there aren't successful kids from public school, obviously.  But it goes both ways. I can't stand it when people try to tell me about some awkward homeschooler they once met or heard about.  I'm like yeah let me tell you about the awkward public schooled kids I grew up with!